Blogs from Incheon, South Korea, Asia

Getting to Jangbong-do is quite a mission. First we had to take the subway to Unseo Station, which is on the airport line. Since we had sat drinking coffee in the station to wake up, we didn't have enough time to get the bus to the port, so we took a taxi to the ferry port. It wasn't very far and the taxi was just over 5,000 won. We were deposited in front of Sammok Quay. We had been there before when we went to Sin-do, Si-do and Mo-do, but I didn't recognise it at all. We walked into the terminal building, it was bedlam! I couldn't believe how busy it was. We filled out our forms for the ferry, a must post Sewol, we had to fill in two forms and keep the second one ... read more

Todays plan was that we would be going to the DMZ where there is the border of the two Koreas. We were picked up by a car from our guesthouse and taken to the place where the bus was waiting. Unfortunately we were told that the main attraction was closed because of the MERS outbreak and instead we went to the Gangwha Peace Observatory. On the way to the observatory our guide Mr. SP "special present" Hong (he wanted us to call him SP rather than mister Hong) told us about the Demilitarized zone. He told us that the DMZ was established in 1953, it's 4 km wide, there are about 1 million soldiers altogether, and 2 million landmines. The Peace observatory is the nearest observatory to North Korea. First we saw a 5 minute video ... read more

15th Nov: We had stayed the night at Incheon, so that we were close to the ferry terminal. We had tried to stay at the same motel as we had when we went to Baeknyeong-do, but since we had arrived late, after 11 pm, it was full. But the lovely man pointed out another motel to us. We were up early, as our ferry left at nine am, luckily the motel was a tow minute walk to the ferry terminal. It wasn't as busy as it had been back in May, I noticed that the old information board had been removed and replaced with a brand new electronic one. No sign left of the Sewol now. We got our tickets from the desk, they were very efficient, as they had them printed out ready for us. ... read more

Many years ago I had my first sampling of Korean food back in my home country of Myanmar, and found it very much to my liking. Since then, I've always wanted to see South Korea, officially called the Republic of Korea. I had my chance when a Korean friend whom I had known briefly in Thailand when he was working there, invited me to visit his country. It was the first week of May in Bangkok, Thailand. I had just returned from visiting my daughter and her family in Los Angeles, USA. The new academic year at the college where I worked was due to begin in 10 days time, but I still had the travel itch in me. So, on a sudden impulse I shot an email to Mr. Kim in Seoul saying that I ... read more

We woke up late today, the lie-in was lush. We ended up getting up around eleven and it was after twelve by the time we had all showered and gotten ourselves ready it was well after twelve. We were all starving, so we headed into downtown Baeknyeong-do to find some lunch. Most of the places looked seafoody or shut. We decided on a place, it was like a kimbap shop, regular Korean food, and we ordered lots of things to share. We ordered a shrimp fried rice, kimchi jjigae, bulgogi stew, and jaeyuk deopbab. It was all lovely and we scoffed it all down. Feeling full, we left but not before Mel got her photo with the signed Hyun Bin poster on the wall. He'd eaten here when he was staying on Baeknyeong-do, too. We took ... read more